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Conservatives tend to be more cautious. Their key insight, formulated most famously by Edmund Burke, is that social reality is much more complicated than the champions of progress grasp and that people aren’t very good at understanding the world and predicting the future. That’s why it’s best to keep things as they are—even if they seem unfair—and
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
His speeches were very simple. He made no campaign promises; a reporter was to write that Coke Stevenson never once in his entire career promised the people of Texas anything except to act as his conscience dictated. He had made a record in Austin, he said. The record was one of economy in government, of prudence and frugality, of spending the
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Do Contrato Social (Portuguese Edition)
Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, articulated one of the clearest assertions about “good government” consistent with the spirit of the Declaration.
“…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall
... See morePeter Thiel • The Straussian Moment
It is the question of whether in these days the claims of government are to leave anything whatever of the rights of man.
G. K. Chesterton • The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books]
Ever since the first modern conservative, Edmund Burke, suggested that humans were too flawed to think up schemes for improving their condition and were better off sticking with traditions and institutions that kept them from the abyss, a major stream of conservative thought has been skeptical about the best-laid plans of mice and men. The
... See moreSteven Pinker • Enlightenment Now
The heirs of Locke are, first Berkeley and Hume; second, those of the French philosophes who did not belong to the school of Rousseau; third, Bentham and the philosophical Radicals; fourth, with important accretions from Continental philosophy, Marx and his disciples.